Author Notes

Choice Review

Calvin Coolidge has consistently placed near the bottom of the list when historians have ranked US presidents. This convincing reinterpretation of Coolidge's failed presidency provides new insight into the career of "one of the most misunderstood presidents in American history." Gilbert (political science, Northeastern Univ.) argues that Coolidge suffered from clinical depression brought on by the death of the younger of his two sons, Calvin, Jr. The 16-year-old boy died unexpectedly in July 1924, a year after his father assumed the presidency following the death of Warren Harding and weeks after the senior Coolidge won the Republican nomination for reelection. The author uses a biographical approach to contrast Coolidge's behavior before and after his son's death, demonstrating that the circumstances of his early life made him susceptible to depression, and showing how an active, engaged, disciplined, hard-working man became detached from the responsibilities of his office, consumed by his son's death, and distanced from associates, friends, and his wife and surviving son--virtually disabled. A final chapter recapitulates Coolidge's behavior, arguing that after the death of his son the president demonstrated every one of the criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association to define a major depressive episode. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General collections and upper-division undergraduates and above. A. J. Dunar University of Alabama in Huntsville